She chews on her lip and says nothing as she takes a deep breath.
"I need you here, alright? For work reasons," I add quickly when she shoots me a look.
"Fine."
I grin, "Fine?"
"Fine, I'll stay."
"Atta girl."
"But one more text about your- your-"
"Cock?"
She blushes, "Yes, Oliver. One more of those and I'm gone."
I laugh. "Aww, c'mon, luv! I'm just dying for female attention over here!"
Chloe rolls her eyes, "I seriously doubt that."
Okay, I admit it; there's a teeny bit of a thrill that comes with Oliver chasing after me in order to get me to stay at Jolie. It's like this little illicit feeling of glee inside when he makes the show - however crude - at getting me to stay. And yet, at the same time I find I'm exasperated with myself for even thinking like that.
Because the truth is, I need Oliver in my life like I need another hole in my head. Yeah, pass.
Jolie is mercifully closed on Mondays, as is the trend for restaurants of that caliber, and so waking up that morning is like waking up to a sort of mini vacation.
And it is sort of vacation for me, in a weird way I guess. I mean I am in Europe, right?
Part of me wants to just spend the whole day in bed, just shutting out the world, catching up with friends back home, and really just staying the hell away from Oliver. But I last about 45 minutes before the lack of coffee in my room and feelings of cabin fever get to be too much for me and I leave my sanctuary behind.
Instead, I decide to go for a run.
Hoxton and Shoreditch are gritty older parts of East London, but pretty in a sort of broken way. It's an "up and coming" area, as they say, as evident by the mix old-time looking gangsters and shopkeepers mixed with hipsters in ironic glasses and t-shirts. I run past 150 year old sausage shops next to week-old pop-up vegan ice-cream parlors, the shoe-shine on the corner in front of a new Nike store. Battered brick walls covered with wheat-paper posters for bands I'm not nearly cool enough to have heard of. I even have to grin at the sight of an iconic Banksy street-art painting along the brick wall of a chip-shop in a building older than my entire neighborhood back home in L.A..
I push it harder than I usually do, forcing myself to breathe and forcing my legs to pump faster and faster, until my whole body is screaming for a cease-fire and break from the torture. It's almost as if I'm trying to outrun everything in my head, but when I look up, gasping for breath, and realize I'm right back in front of the house I started at. I know there's no escaping your own head.
I've managed to blow off some steam, but I still haven't blown him out of my mind.
The house is quiet, Oliver's not home - I check, even poking my head into his room to make sure.
Thank goodness.
A day of rest from the restaurant won't exactly do a whole lot of good if I have to spend it with Oliver anyways.
I peel my shirt off as I walk into my room, and I've got my sports bra halfway over my head when the voice to the right of me about gives me a heart attack.
"I made you something."
"Jesus FUCK!" I whirl, covering my chest with my hands. It's Oliver, of course, slumped in my desk chair behind the door and grinning at me.
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" I hiss at him, wanting to punch him in his stupid face if only doing so wouldn't give him an eyeful of my tits in the process. "You can't just waltz in here, you dick."
"You know, I think pastry chefs are supposed to be nicer." He furrows his brow, as if delving deep into thought. "Definitely nicer, usually grandmothers with gray hair maybe?"
I tighten my jaw, "What do you want Oliver?"
He smirks at me, "I don't think they're supposed to have a rack that nice either," he says, nodding his chin at my cleavage.
I roll my eyes, "Okay, get out."
"Hey, hang on, chill. I told you, I made you something."
"If it's another haiku about your dick or something crude about my...my pussy-" He grins wickedly when I say the word, "Then you can fuck right off, right now."
"Chloe, please, those sort of shenanigans are so beneath me."
I almost grin, "Since when, today?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
This time I do crack a smile.
"Anyways, it's nothing like that. I actually made you something. Well, future tense, I guess. I'm going to make you something."
I furrow my brow at him, "Huh?"
He stands, "Look, just come down to the kitchen after you shower, alright?"
"Why," I say suspiciously.
"Because I'm going to cook for you, that's why."
*****
The smell of cooking garlic and the sizzling sound of a stove-top wash over me as I pad down the stairs after my shower.
Oliver looks up with a grin as I step into the Beckett's open-style kitchen and nods towards one of the bar stools at the island counter, "Sit."
"Bossy."
"Always."
I grin and roll my eyes as I take a seat. "So, what are we having?"
"Sage and pumpkin ravioli in a balsamic reduction with braised brussel sprouts and wheat-berries on the side."
My stomach roars, "Holy crap. Okay, I'm impressed."
"I do do this professionally, you know," he says with a quick grin before he goes back to stirring the cast-iron pan on top of the stove.
"So what brought this on?"
"What, cooking for you?" He looks up and winks, "Consider it a peace offering, I guess. I was-" He clears his throat, "I was maybe a bit more of a dick than necessary the other night."
He turns the flame off on the stovetop and whisks the pan over to a plate already drizzled with what looks like balsamic and herbs. He finishes the plate with a flourish before sliding it in front of me.
Holy crap.
The plate in front of me looks like it could be right off the pages of a gourmet cookbook.
I glance up at him, grinning as my stomach rumbles, "Peace offering, huh?"
"The best kind."
"So, no poison?"
Oliver laughs. "You have zero faith in me don't you?" He rolls his eyes and drops a fork next to me at the counter, "Mange."
I close my eyes at the first bite, savoring how utterly perfect it is, "Okay, damn."
He grins, "Can't even taste the poison, can you?"
"Ass."
I fork another bite of the insanely good food into my mouth before I glance back at up at him, "You know, a note or something might've been smoother than sneaking around my room waiting for me to get home."
"Yeah well a note wasn't going to have a shot at catching a peek of you changing, now would it?"
I choke on the ravioli as my cheeks flush red while Oliver just smirks at me.
With a roll of my eyes, I push my plate away and start to get off of my stool.
"Oy! Hang on now, luv!" Oliver jumps around to my side of the kitchen island, frowning at me, "Look, I'm sorry, it was meant to be a peace offering, okay?"
He's right in front of me, basically boxing me in with my back against the counter, and I glare at him. "It's not a peace offering if you're being crude about it."
He rolls his eyes, "Yeah, must've missed that bit in the ‘Recipes for Peace Offerings' cookbook."
I quickly try and hide the grin that comes to my lips, but he catches it anyways, "Ahh, she does smile." He arches his brow at me and takes another step closer, his hands on either side of me on the counter. "So, was the ravioli that bad that you're just going to walk away?"
He moves closer, so close that he's right in front of me. And I know I should by pushing him away, or telling him he shouldn't get so close, or something-
Except the first thought that comes unbidden to my mind isn't that he shouldn't be so close to me.
It's that I want him closer.
I swallow thickly, trying to swallow the sudden illicit thoughts about him in the motion as look up into his dark eyes. "Just what do you think you're doing?"
"I'm seeing how your meal was. I'm a chef, it's sort of what we do."
I raise my eyebrows, trying to will the blush away from my cheeks and calm the racing of my pulse with him so close to me like this. "And do you ask everyone you cook for how it was while you're three inches away from them?"
"Only the especially attractive, especially difficult ones."
He winks, his hands on both sides of the counter keeping me there, invading my space and my senses and making my head spin.
"So," he leans close, "how was it," he whispers into my ear, making my pulse race even faster.
"It … it was good."
"Just good?"
"Mhmm." Words; I don't trust myself to even use them right now. I barely trust myself to even open my mouth. He pulls back, there's a beat, and then it's like the floodgates giving way as we come crashing together.